The use of composite material in commercial and military applications is well known. Composite materials are desirable due to their mechanical characteristics such as a high strength to weight ratio and high thermal tolerances. As such, composite materials are used to build structural supports such as beam members.
Various applications such as rockets, launch vehicles, airliners and other vehicles generally characterized by large cylindrical sections, require large structural internal supports. Typically, the cylindrical sections are comprised of an outer skin supported by internal supports which take the form of circular shaped beams. Additionally, circular shaped beams may be used to join multiple cylindrical sections by providing a common internal support to which the outer skins of two cylinders may be attached.
Design requirements for a given launch vehicle type, for example, may provide for cylindrical sections having a generally similar outer skin diameter. Thus, the underlying internal structural supports or beams for various launch vehicles may have roughly the same outer moldline. Due to various considerations (such as loading and weigh), however, the beams are often required to have different cross-sectional configurations and dimensions associated with particular launch vehicles. Thus, generically fabricated beams are typically feasible and specialized tooling is often utilized to make the various beams.
It is therefore evident that there exists a need in the art for tooling for fabricating beams which is flexible so as to facilitate the production of beams having a variety of cross-sectional configurations and dimensions.